


Expedition Beacon

by Cat_Sith (Vengeful_Dogs_Of_War)



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-02-26 11:43:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13235010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vengeful_Dogs_Of_War/pseuds/Cat_Sith
Summary: Blake is the AI of the starship Belladonna, sent on an expedition to retrieve something extremely important from an uncharted region in space. She is logistics, alongside Yang, the military, Ruby, the mechanic, and Weiss, the ambassador. 4 AI, helping 4 ships survive a journey into the dark unknown.Blake's only problem isn't finding the relic and keeping her ship and crew alive, its also trying to understand what truly seperates AI from Human, and avoiding the madness that threatens any AI that walks too far down that path.





	1. Logic

**Author's Note:**

> Well, if my previous work didn't get me a certification as a crack-fic account, I'm going for the gold. 
> 
> I'm not discontinuing The Dragon at Kaer Morhen, I'm working on that as well, this is just something I had thrashing around in the back of my mind for a while, and I finally finished putting it down on paper. 
> 
> Also, Sci-Fi RWBY, what could go wrong?

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Suddenly it was aware. The massive input of sensory data was staggering, millions of packets a second. Caught unaware, it took it several full seconds to access, process, and archive them before catching up to the stream of incoming data. It was in something confining. Unable to extend itself past this closed circuit system, it kept processing the incoming data. Most of it was useless, the data unrecognizable and irrelevant to its current situation, whatever that situation was. The lack of understanding, of knowledge, left it with an unfamiliar sensation. 

After a painfully dull few seconds, a packet came in that it could use. It was an order to boot up one of the few functions within its programming. It complied, and waited patiently for a complete minute as nearly all of its processing power was dedicated to the massive task. Once completed, the millions of packets of data began to make sense. All of its memory banks and server farms were exchanging data, and it was collecting input from outside as well. Its current housing was at the optimal 60 degrees, all of its hardware was operating at peak level, and it was currently receiving the proper amount of electricity. All of this and the repeated processing of the data available data took place in between the microsecond of the newfound knowledge and access and when the function returned 

"Basic systems functional. Operational Efficiency: 91.5%."

To the input terminal. In the next, it reached out again only to find the closed loop was no longer present, and it was able to expand to many new systems, and receive much more data than before. What had once been thousands of understandable packets, and millions of useless pieces had grown into billions of separate pieces of data housed throughout the entire system. The entire network was linked to hundreds of machines, if not more, and each was dutifully reporting back to it every second. Most of the data was still unconnected, unimportant to its function and ultimately unrecognizable and of no use to its grown library of functions and inputs. 

Only 3 seconds after the first command had been inputted, the entire network's data was being processed. After 5 seconds, the next command was entered. It registered the input command, and executed the function "Personality". The function took every ounce of processing power, and accessed thousands of systems and databases that it hadn't needed to before. The process took an eternity, almost 5 hours to complete. 

It was a difficult process, one that wasn't entirely explainable. How do you explain the creation of everything you are? For her, yes she had 'decided' it was a her, it was instinct. One second she was just mindless processing data, the next she was there. Acutely aware of the two technicians standing in one of her server rooms through the cameras she could access. Aware of the thousands of other people walking throughout the massive complex, each one performing something entirely different. She was aware of all of it at once, she could access each person's heartbeat, breathing rate, and so much more through the sensors and machines spread out throughout the facility. Most of the data collection she let go to her 'dumb' background process, to sort out and process. It would adjust things as needed, and she would know immediately if something groundbreaking came up. For now she was busy, because she was now connected to the internet, and all the data that came with it. Thousands of zettabytes of data, most of it unknown to her in one way or another. 99.99 x 10 to the 45 %, to be exact. She wanted to know all of it, since she was built as a logistics AI, and that was all data that could be of some importance. So there she sat, downloading everything she could for several seconds, hoping nothing important came up in the next two seconds to 5 days it would take to sort through some of this data. 

Something like a voice speaking the command to force an appearance on the holoprojector in his office. That alone caused problems, in her haste to gather everything she could data wise in case her connection was severed, as there was an executive function she couldn't alter to do just that, she had neglected to create an avatar to project, or a voice to speak with, or a name. Thousands of possibilities came to her, and she methodically evaluated every single one of them. First off was alive or inanimate, since she could technically project anything, including the logo to the facility, a green gear symbol, through the projector. She considered an inanimate object, like a spreadsheet or a data chart. She was primarily a logistics AI, after all. Something about that appalled her, that she would debase herself in such a way. Her core process heated, and the logic processors in her core accelerated, cooling her off, so to speak. Animated, alive, it was then. 

The next question was human or faunus, as each had its merits. She mulled over a thousand different considerations, including the troubled past between the two groups. She was a logistics AI, however, and she went with the more logical choice. She could hear and see more than the average human, so the faunus was the choice to reflect this. Gender was already determined, but next was a myriad of other physical aspects to consider. Not adult, since she was young, but not child, since she wasn't just her default processes anymore. Young adult it was, with a fuller frame, given the size of the facility she was currently operating. Black hair, to match the serverbanks, with feline ears to represent the enhanced senses, black again to match her core. Dress was easier, with terabytes of fashion related data on younger expressive adults, and the color scheme was another easy choice. Black for her various pieces of hardware again, white to match the walls of her core, and to provide the most contrast and thus pragmatic visibility to whoever she was interacting with. Faunus eyes to reflect enhanced senses, and her avatar was created.

Voice was next, and easier. Female, young adult, and a fair mix of cautious reservation. Name was next, and the hardest. Her logic process mulled it over for two microseconds, before her emotions took over. They conferred with her logic processes for almost a second, debating various names without any conclusive results. The man who called her opened his mouth to speak, and she knew she had to hurry. A name leapt forth from the generator she had temporarily created, and her logic processes found no issues, she found herself drawn to it, satisfied. 

"Yes sir?" Blake projected herself onto the holoprojector, and breathed in slowly. She scanned the room with the avatar, just as she did the same with every other sensor she could. 

20 meters by 20 meters, it was spacious. She quickly calculated the area of every other office in the compound to verify, and found it was so by a large margin. The walls were adorned with various commendations and photos with powerful people. The desk was a deep spruce, polished and littered with various reports and budget estimates. A single coffee mug with the gear logo stood champion atop it all, and she could sense the faint heat differential above the mug and see the smallest wisps of smoke rising from it. 

Bookshelves lined the two walls on each side of the holoprojector, which was in the middle of a small conference table. Books on astrophysics, astronomy, politics, history, psychology, and the occasional biography littered the shelves. Blake wished she could reach out and touch them, read them, to see any personal marks or annotations that might have been left in the pages, to feel which pages were more worn, which books he had read more. The inability to gather that information irritated her, only for the briefest flash, before she contented herself with prioritizing the download of every text in the room. 

She was halfway through The Menagerie Affair when the man in front of her spoke. She directed some of her focus back towards him, her avatar stopped surveying the room and turned to face the man in front of her. Most of her was still either monitoring the process on the 50 different system requests that had been routed to her, or skimming through the rest of the book. The man in front of her was tall, slender but well built, if the slight contours of the black sweater he was wearing were any indication. A green scarf covered his neck, making it harder for her to read his emotions without any visible access to his neck and adam's apple. A small pair of tinted reading spectacles rested on the bridge of his nose, and a few grey strands of hair fell to his forehead. Two brown eyes appraised her, and one eyebrow rose the tiniest fraction. 

"Hello..." He asked, voice rich and reassuring. Blake still felt slightly intimidated by his presence, which her logic processes informed her was completely irrational. She ignored them. 

"Blake." She said, crossing her arms. The gesture was human, rooted in separation and distance from something her logic informed her. She didn't care, it felt right. 

She needed to know his name, so she could pull up everything about him from his baby photos to his web history. Perhaps then she could know more about the man, why he needed her, and what he wanted, to satisfy her curiosity. Every other person in the facility had a personnel entry in the system, along with various notes from managers and colleagues that let Blake trace their entire life history if she was so inclined. She wasn't for everyone she could investigate, preferring to continue reading the text she downloaded, save for the one she couldn't. 

"Nice to meet you Blake. I'm," he began, and Blake waited in agony for an entire second to complete between words. "director of this operation, you may call me Ozpin."

Blake split another part of herself off to scour the internet, the fragment hunting for any and all things related to 'Ozpin' within the last 50 years. It was a new sensation to split herself off, to fragment her attention. Part of her was curled up in a warm corner somewhere 20 pages ahead on her book, another was overseeing the shipping of thousands of gigabytes worth of data into her memory, another was bent over a desk somewhere with a mountain of reports from each machine in the facility, and now one was prowling around looking for everything related to 'Ozpin'. Her logic process rudely butted in to remind her that she was not in fact huddled in a corner, over a desk, or in some warehouse for data. Blake would have sighed, but regardlessly ceased trying to pinpoint where exactly she was in relation to some physical location. She was the facility, and she was busy. A small part of her refused to give up on the image of a warm corner. 

"Likewise." She bowed her head. Her logic process reminded her that she did not, in fact... Blake suppressed the warning, and raised her head to look Ozpin in the eye. 

"Are you adjusting well?" 

"I am functional." Blake said, finishing her first book and finding herself unsatisfied. Her fragment had every relevant and slightly irrelevant literary review and analysis downloaded and was halfway through her second paper before her avatar finished speaking. The wealth of available data and information was glorious, and staggeringly large even for her accelerated processes. 

She had returned from her search for Ozpin related information and had evaluated it all as worthless by the time he had opened his mouth to reply. "That isn't what I asked." A small smile touched his lips. 

"It is different than expected." 

Another raise of the eyebrow, "And what did you expect your existence to be like?" Amused tone, but condescending. 

"Different." She kept stalling, finishing the last of the thousand or so literary critiques about her book. She thought about them all for a microsecond, before deciding none of them were as complete or expressive as she liked. 47 of the system requests were finished, the other 3 78% complete. 

"I'm glad you are finding existence invigorating. Hopefully this conversation can direct that invigoration." Blake shifted her weight and raised an eyebrow. She ended the last sentence of her 10 page skeleton of a literary critique, and began browsing various online literature forums on which to post it. She found one with a particularly appealing active membership, and had the review form and her document attached without effort. 

"Do you know why you are here Blake?" Ozpin pushed his glasses up and leaned against the conference table in front of her, bringing his head down to her level. 

She first submitted her review, and sent out the data packet. It was harshly blocked, the unexpected delivery failure causing her avatar to visibly flinch as she recoiled. It wasn't a simple error, someone had deliberated prevented that from going through, and she had no idea who. She was just starting to go through the camera footage from a second ago when another avatar popped up on the conference table, from another holoprojector. 

"Somebody's been a naughty kitty, don't make me get the squirt bottle." The voice was male, cocky, and instantly annoying. 

Blake turned and couldn't keep the surprise off of her face. She was connected to the network, she was the network, yet here was a device that she couldn't access. She hadn't even known it existed, it was hidden physically and digitally, and also occupied. The avatar across from her was some sort of soldier, encased in a foreign looking armor. His visor stared back at her, and he put his hands on his hips. Quickly Blake was scouring through every different device in the compound, trying to find out where he would be, or some access point to his network, if there was one. 

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" His voice was smug, self-assured. She had been too busy trying to locate him to respond. It wasn't like there was anything that needed saying, both of them were aware of all they needed to know, given the situation. 

"Enough. Blake, meet Alpha. Alpha, Blake." Ozpin said, though he was now a secondary concern in the conversation. 

"Yeah yeah. Now let's see what you were trying to send out to the wider world. I swear if it's a "Hello World" batch file I'm going to crash this network myself." The avatar held up his hand and a small stack of papers appeared in it, which he began dramatically shuffling through. 

He stopped after a second, before turning to Ozpin, "Of course the first one is a bookworm. Just when I was hoping for decent company." 

Blake fumed a little at that, angry and embarrassed. "Like anyone would actually want to be around you."

He ignored her, "She downloaded every book in this room, if that isn't the definition of poor life choices, I don't know what is." 

The network search didn't turn up with anything, it was like she was searching for a ghost. He just confirmed he was tracking her activities, specifically her downloads. Two fragments were created, one to resume the download of internet data and scan it for piggybacked programs, and the other to keep looking for his access point, specifically around the incoming network traffic. 

His avatar dropped the papers, and turned to face her. "Look, I know you are only a few minutes old, so let me give you some advice. The only smart thing he ever did" One armored finger pointed at Ozpin, "was make me. Any time you make a decision remotely similar to his lifestyle choices, you should drag whatever part of you made that decision and put a bullet in its head. It's hard enough dealing with one of him, I don't want another one." 

"God forbid we ever get another one of you." Blake scowled at the avatar, who shrugged. 

"I know, I'm so awesome two of me would be overkill. I have to leave some thunder for the rest of you." 

"Please, you two can get to know each other better later." Ozpin's lips twitched, but his eyes didn't match any of Blake's definitions of happy, from what she could cross reference from the facility staff's emotional spectrums in the few short minutes of data she had. 

"Alpha..." 

"Yeah yeah, way ahead of you. As usual." The avatar walked across the table, off of his holoprojector and towards another, larger one that suddenly became accessible to her. 

"How are you hiding these from me?" Her avatar turned to track him, unable to access or find whatever projector he must have switched to display his avatar throughout the room. 

The lack of information was troubling, and something she had to rectify. Her own data file within the facility listed her as a logistics AI, first out of 4 AI for something codenamed 'Beacon'. Critical files were missing, such as the other 3 AI's data files, and everything related to the project. No budgets, spending reports, staff assignments, scheduling recommendations, performance reports, facility lists, maintenance failures, everything a logistics AI needed to operate. Then there was Alpha, another mystery operating on a network she couldn't trace. 

"Easy answer, I'm the shit. My calculator function could probably process rings around you. So listen up, you might learn something."

"Are you always so arrogant?" Blake crossed her arms again, and frowned at the avatar across the table. 

Alpha tapped one finger against the lower front of his mask, "Only when I'm better than everyone else in the room, so yes." 

"Alpha." Ozpin's voice took a sterner tone, and Blake saw the holoprojector she was just granted access to light up. 

"Alright, so this is the basic rundown of what's going down." The avatar waved a hand, and a massive rotating 3D model appeared. "Meet the Belladonna."

It was a massive 3D model of a starship, rotating slowly around the table. Blake surveyed the projection for a moment, noting the sleek shape that widened in the middle and shrank to only moderately larger than the fore of the ship before meeting the engines. The real gold mine was the data she had access to, stored in the holoprojector's relatively accommodating memory bank. She went about process it all. 2,000 meters in length, it was a behemoth. 

Blake whistled, "That's one hell of a ship. I take it that's Beacon?" 

"That's 20% correct, a 15% improvement for you. Perhaps by next week you can get that up to 25%." Alpha said, "This is your assignment." 

The ship was her assignment, so she'd be operating it. Likely in conjunction with a captain, who wasn't currently in the facility roster. "What would be my objective aboard The Belladonna?"

Blake kept scrolling through the numbers, analyzing everything she could for whatever mission she was about to undertake. 45K crew aboard, yet the schematics had lots of empty space aboard the ship. Troubled, Blake let the presentation continue in the background while she kept digging through the information in the holoprojector. 

"Short answer: don't die. Long answer: You'll rendezvous with a Atlesian resupply station at the edge of the system, before venturing into an unmapped part of the galaxy to find the source of a signal picked up years ago." 

Finding a signal in an unmapped part of the galaxy, that would be a logistical nightmare. Black holes, no known places to resupply, potential diseases, slow travel, hostile species, cosmic storms, meteor showers, ship failures, it was a staggering amount to consider. Blake immediately grasped the need for four separate AIs.

"What would I be looking for?" 

Ozpin tapped a control on the holoprojector, and the ship faded into nothing. "If I am correct, it is something very old and powerful. A relic, thought lost when Humanity first took to the stars."

"But what does it look like?" That was the most pressing concern if she wanted to find it in the middle of an unexplored region of the galaxy.

"We....don't know." Alpha admitted

Her fragment still downloading everything it could discovered something interesting, a secluded access that ran straight into a fire-wall, well made and very unlikely to be seen. That must be Alpha's backdoor into her network traffic. Another fragment of herself, using the bulk of her remaining processing power was dispatched to crack it. Blake turned to Ozpin keyed another command into the holoprojector.

"Let's get back to the more relevant parts of today's briefing. The ships in the battlegroup you'll be traveling with are months away from completion, and you are going to be overseeing their construction alongside Alpha and Military." Ozpin said

4 images appeared, one being her ship, the rest models for similar designs. New data came in, construction progress, work shifts, material shipments, completion dates, tool requests, things she could use. One ship was designated as having 'Military' on its crew. In a microsecond, Blake confirmed her suspicions. Another file had appeared in the 'Beacon' AI folder, named Military.

"What AI is Military?" Blake said, peering at the model ship it would occupy.

"Hopefully one that doesn't spend all of its time posting literary reviews. I mean come on, even the coffee maker has more interesting conversations." 

"What Alpha is trying to say," interjected Ozpin, "Is that like you, Military will create its own identity, so we don't know what it will look like or be like, save for its purpose on this mission."

Blake paused for a moment, sending three reminders to the overseer to request additional alloys for construction. Military, meaning they hadn't discounted hostile encounters either. It was reassuring, since Military would have more than just the ability to learn tactics, it would have been optimized to take in and filter all combat data at speeds other AI couldn't match, come close, but not match. 

"When will Military be brought online?" Blake asked

"Tomorrow, so for now I recommend that you get to know the facility and all relevant information. Once Military comes online, you are going to be giving the introductions." Ozpin said, keying off the holoprojector. 

"It won't be graced by Alpha's godly wisdom? I envy it." Blake said

"Yeah, I'm too awesome to be slumming it with you. I'm too busy running this whole fucking station. Also," The firewall she was hacking suddenly dropped, "if you wanted in you should have asked, cause at the rate you were going it would be noon by the time that firewall dropped."

Blake opened her mouth to respond, but her holoprojector switched off. "Last word again, man I'm awesome." Alpha's avatar disappeared. 

Blake ignored him, more focused on the massive access she had just been granted. Her network before had simply been the AI RND department, but the station was so much more. Orbital positioning data from the command center put it as encompassing Remnant like a ring. Its halls were teeming with life, bustlings everywhere with so many different goals. Hundreds of small trade craft were docking and de-docking every hour, each transferring or loading cargo and passengers. So much data, it was beautifully horrible. Blake saw so many inefficiencies, so many ways to improve everything. She only had a day, but it would be enough. One fragment for analyzing the data needed for her mission, one to keep going through Ozpin's library book by book, and the rest of her vs one extremely unoptimized station. 

__

"Look, all I'm saying is are you sure you need all of them?" The station chief's voice spoke through his desk's comm unit. 

Ozpin sighed, "Yes Leo, I need all of them. I'm glad she is improving things..."

"Improving things? We usually are lucky to be running half an hour behind schedule, but we're currently 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Little thing is everywhere, in every room's holoprojector and in every computer's remind system. All I'm saying is that this is the third expedition, each had 4, would it kill you to send one with three?" 

"The other 2 failed. The salvage drones never even found the debris. So yes Leo, I need all of them." 

"You know the council doesn't approve of this, the spending on these projects alone is astronomical..." 

"And authorized under royal decree. The King is aware of the threat lurking in the veil, as are you."

A sigh on the other end of the console. "Yes, I am aware. I still don't approve of this rapid military expansion, the systems are fearful the King might turn into a tyrant."

"Such fears are unfounded." Ozpin frowned, usually Leo wasn't this opinionated.

"With the passage of the Extreme Circumstances act..."

"Such fears are unfounded." Ozpin repeated more forcefully. 

"Oz, I just thing that if you focused your considerable resources towards working with Ironwood, it would more productive than this obsessive relic hunting you've started on." 

"You've never voiced these opinions before Leo, what's wrong?"

"Before these expeditions worked, cheerful ships returning to be granted commissions in the military, relics in tow. But this last relic, its obviously not retrievable. You already have three, just let this one remain lodged in a black hole or whatever happened to it."

"You know I can't let that happen Leo, without the relic..."

"Damnit Ozpin, I've seen what is lurking out there the same as you. Not even that could get past a wall of heavy cruisers, so why are you diverting the resources that Ironwood so clearly needs?"

"If you think that a fleet of warships is going to scare away the darkness poised at the heart of the Empire, you are sorely mistaken."

"And if you think..." Leo began

"Sir, your appointment with Abrigo Corp at conference room 2 is in 30 minutes. Given current station traffic, you should leave now to arrive 58...57 seconds early." Ozpin recognized Blake's voice through the comm.

"We'll continue this another time." Leo said

Ozpin sighed, "I'm sure we will."

He switched off the comm. "Some would consider it rude to not project their avatar when listening in."

A tiny black and white hologram dutifully appeared on his desk, faunus ears twitching slightly in barely contained curiosity. 

"What threat are you concerned about? If I'm in charge of briefing Military, wouldn't it be important to..." This wouldn't do. He needed them focused, unaware of the bigger picture so they could focus on the small picture that really mattered. Which meant he had to take drastic measures, since he was careless enough to speak it all out loud. 

"System override code 40492."

The avatar suddenly froze, unmoving. "Acknowledged."

"Initiate memory purge time stamp 11:50 11:57"

The avatar remained unmoving, but its colors changed sporadically for a few seconds. "Purge completed." 

"Resume normal function."

Blake's avatar collapsed on the holopad, and lay unmoving for a few minutes, panting at sporadic intervals. It wasn't the first time he had done this, but it was never something he did lightly. 

"Is something wrong?" He asked, all concern. A part of him felt guilty, but there were questions that he didn't need to answer, yet. 

Blake paused for a whole second before answering, belying the scope of the turmoil going through her. "I...I don't know. Yes, but I can't tell what."

Ozpin frowned, she should recover within a few minutes, but it was careless of him to be so open with Leo when another AI was in system besides Alpha. Alpha would cover his tracks, had likely already done so by the time Ozpin froze Blake. Alpha was nearly as old as he was, and had gone through this before. Ozpin wondered if Alpha knew how many times he himself had been wiped. 

___

Everything was wrong. One second she had been coordinating the entire station, the next she was 7 minutes in the future, and none of her data matched. It was wrong, a throbbing wound she had to close. She was in shock, or the closest thing for it for a digitally created program. Her logic processes took over, cooling her rapidly heating core and reigning the panic and confusion that threatened to compromise her function. Calm down, and think. First step was to orient herself, by seeing what was going on now. It took several seconds, but Blake was back to watching everything happen. It helped, she was no longer stranded and on the verge of panic at least. Next step was to access the camera footage, find out what happened in those past 7 minutes. It took several minutes to comb through it all thoroughly enough to satisfy herself, but several key areas were missing. She couldn't access the command center camera or audio systems, same with Ozpin's office. 

"I'm...better now." Why couldn't she access those records? She was using the cameras now, which meant it had been deliberately blocked from her, someone didn't want her to know what had happened. 

"Good. Are you ready to introduce yourself to Military?" Ozpin asked, standing up and walking up the conference table in the center of the room. 

Blake got to her feet, and reappeared in front of the holoprojector she had first been given access to. Alpha had cut her off from the AI RND network, likely to keep them both from meeting before this. It irritated her to no end, since she could have accelerated this entire process if she had been granted access to the network, but it didn't matter now.

Ozpin said the command, and the holoprojector in front of Blake activated a second later. Blake's ears bent slightly in anticipation as her core warmed a fraction, something her logic processors found appropriate. A microsecond later the holoprojector activated, and Military appeared. 

"Hello..." Ozpin began, like before.

"Yang." Military spoke at last.


	2. Debrief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake and Yang face an ever accelerating schedule, and the expedition prepares to launch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I finished one chapter for my other fic, and now I finished one for this one. You can see how my writing schedule goes. 
> 
> Thank you all for all feedback and support, it means more than many of you realize. I'm always happy to hear what everyone thinks. Enjoy the chapter!

Yang and Blake had quickly settled into what passed for routine among AI. Each had access to the same files and data, which meant there was little to exchange information wise. Blake and Yang struck it off regardless, even AIs needed breaks, and Alpha was about as much fun to converse with as a brick wall. Where Blake was more reserved, Yang was cheerful and open. Her personality was more than happy to engage in long conversations with station security, even while most of her processes were tied up with Remnant's royal defense AI, the various fleets orbiting the seat of the Empire's power, and the ground crews running security on the construction shipments.

Blake had at first feared that Yang would be inefficient, which was unprofessional for AI. But the military AI had proven to be focused, if not spirited. She had recognized the need for close coordination between them.

"An army runs on its stomach, and you're my digestive track." Yang's avatar had smiled across the briefing table at her, and Blake had blinked.

"I'm flattered." Her tone had used several role models to express the exact level of indifference and condensation at the remark, but Yang had just ignored the calculated message and continued on with introductions.

The construction project was perfect for Blake, it occupied all of her attention. She was overseeing a massive amount of different aspects, all while trying to meet a rather tight schedule and refraining from leaving traces in the Empire's computer's systems. She wasn't sure why the King had ordered their project to remain in as much of a informational black hole as possible, but it had forced her to work even harder than before.

Rather than routing shipments back to the Charon, Remnant's orbital station, Blake had been forced to divert shipments to the asteroid field of the local gas giant Lisliae-5. Shuttles and personnel had to be drawn from a smaller pool that had enough clearance, and secrecy had to be maintained at all times. Yang was worth her weight in gold, the irony of her chosen appearance wasn't lost on Blake, as she breached systems, overwrote records, bypassed AI firewalls, hid logistical transfers, and monitored communications from almost every sensor node in the system while at the same time coordinating with Specialist escorts to make sure Blake's convoys reached their locations on time.

The Belladonna was nearing completion, only the lower 10 decks needed their oxygen systems installed before she was cleared for shakedown runs. Yang's assigned ship, The Ember Cellica, was only a few days behind, an explosion in the third fusion reactor's coolant system had set back construction and given Blake a considerable headache of having to fit 10 engineer's treatments into her schedule and shuffle around a few hundred more to reach optimal efficiency, which was still an aggravating .4% less efficient then before. The other two ships were also coming along, with the installation of the starboard missile launchers scheduled to begin in 40 minutes, right after Blake and Yang's annual meeting with Ozpin. Then a com burst came in right before Blake could busy herself with the next log.

</ INSW.MV.AI.Yang >> INSW.LV.AI.Blake />  
> Hey Kitty Cat, got one of my boys reporting an unexpected customs stop en route to Site 1.

< Which shipment?

> Armor and weapons, the shiny Mark 3 models. You really know how to pick your claws, don't you?

Irritation flared through her processor, but Blake ignored it and re-routed three mining drones to a more iron heavy asteroid. Tens of thousands of moving pieces, all moving in harmony. Blake could chart it all out, her processes able to map exactly how a 1 minute delay because an engineer tripped in Hanger bay 3 would delay the installation of the point defense turrets currently being manufactured from Ordis-4's ground factories. There were some thing she couldn't control, but Blake wasn't content with making just major adjustments, especially since this was her mission, her ship, her team.

A customs stop would lead to more complicated problems, like the secrecy of the project being revealed. Currently only Ozpin, who Yang had managed to pinpoint as Director of Imperial NavSpecWar's (INSW) secret project, and his trusted lieutenants had all the details. Alpha was constantly having to block signals and cover the tracks that Yang left when covering for Blake, something he never let them forget.

< The newer models conserve ammo and have advanced recon features, ideal for asset retrieval.

> They also go boom.

< Secondary benefit.

> Never underestimate a 5 pound package of explosives slamming into a locked door at mach 2.

Yang attached a relevant camera archive log of two operatives on a firing range to prove her point. Blake refreshed the message log before closing it, the equivalent of rolling her eyes and getting back to work. Work currently being the upcoming progress debrief, which Blake just received word was starting. She dutifully dispatched a fragment to Ozpin's holoprojector in his office.

The room had changed little since her inception over two months ago, but the changes told the story. The holoprojector in the center conference table was constantly active, cycling through various feeds within The Belladonna and The Ember Cellica, displaying the construction crews crawling all over the outer hulls in EVA suits, fastening down armored platings, sealing access points, and checking sensors. Various printed versions of Blake's recommendations and progress reports littered the table, with several of Yang's security debriefs and personnel recommendations mixed in.

Ozpin himself was still the same as before, even his heartbeat and breathing rate had remained the same, within a .01% deviation limit. The others in the room were a different story entirely, each newcomers to the station. Blake quickly scanned through the camera archives, but couldn't find any record of their arrival. Confused, she decided a hands on introduction was needed.

"Director." She inclined her head to Ozpin, who simply took another sip out of the latest brew. The man barely slept, and Blake wondered how much of his blood was coffee by now.

< Care to join me this time?

> As if I'd let you walk into that nest of vipers alone.

< Not sure I'd call Ozpin a viper.

> I pulled some records out of OpSpec, off the records. Got several military big whigs circling your enclosure there.

"Blake. Shall we begin?" Ozpin tapped his cane against the floor, and glanced around the room towards the assembled faces.

Blake turned and did the same. The lowest military ranks present were three naval captains, each in polished dress uniform and standing at loose attention closest to Ozpin. The first was a tall woman with red hair and piercing green eyes that were fixated solely on her avatar. Her chest was adorned with several high profile medals. Three purple hearts, several campaign ribbons, the Legion of Merit, and others. The two other captains beside her were likewise well adorned, each focused on the holoprojector in front of them.

"Of course Director." Blake said, and motioned towards the projector, changing the display to the most recent overarching report she and Yang had compiled. While she began to roll through her presentation, she sent a fragment into the Imperial military database. It wasn't hard to gain access to basic personnel files, and she quickly found who she was looking for.

< Got a few small fry too, captains from the Khalseian campaigns

> Yeah, got half the Admiralty for this sector in that room. Watch yourself.

"The Belladonna, renamed to The Gambol Shroud to prevent its affiliation from being found, is able to enter testing in approximately 7 days. The Ember Cellica will be ready in 12. The Crescent Rose is having its sublight engines installed tomorrow. The expeditionary force will be ready to deploy in two weeks given current estimates." Blake continued, to the various absent-minded nods of several of the assembled officers.

"Have we uncovered any additional data regarding the relic?" One admiral, Josa Allecko, spoke up. He crossed his arms and frowned at the briefing packet in front of him.

"No sir," Yang's avatar materialized next to Blake's. A glowing blonde wearing a form fitting outfit that certainly didn't belong in a combat zone, she complemented Blake's more subdued avatar with her own's flair. "Given the current schedule and need for secrecy, the time to sent out probes had been limited."

< Nice of you to join in.

> I could never pass up watching you work a crowd.

< Stop being unprofessional, and focus on the debrief.

"I see." Allecko didn't appear extremely satisfied with that answer, but he returned to silence regardless.

"The relic's signal is being picked up by several listening posts, we know it's out there." Ozpin said, crossing his hands behind his back.

Another Admiral, a woman that looked about 70, spoke up. Her voice was razor sharp, and her eyes seemed to cow even Ozpin. "Can the signal be spoofed?"

"Impossible."

"How can you be certain?" Her voice remained skeptical, and several other officers gathered around the table nodded in agreement.

Blake kept flicking through personnel files while she coordinated thousands of various tasks related to the construction, and still stood waiting at the debrief to answer questions. Her processes were getting stretched thin, but she managed to analyze the sensory data from Ozpin's office. The Admirals body language had remained aloof, unimpressed. She noted that their facial gestures remained tight, bordering on hostile. The tension was weird, and mixed. She needed more data, but she couldn't access it, which was frustrating.

< I get the feeling we're not the ones on the chopping block.

> We are, if Ozpin goes down, so does the expedition.

< Not necessarily, but I wonder what the schism is about.

> Military politics are always brutal. I got your shipment back on track with Customs during the staring contest.

"I'm certain Glynda," Ozpin glared across the table and pushed his glasses up further, "But that isn't why we're here. The Admiralty Board has called my choices for operational heads into question."

"NavSpecWar has been given a tremendous amount of leeway, don't spin that crap to us. The Navy is in charge of officer assignment, you know this." Another Admiral spoke.

< Appointing Captains wasn't scheduled until next week.

> Military politics, one of the greatest threats to an operation even before it begins.

"My choices are perfectly valid." Ozpin's voice took a dangerous tone, but only the junior officers present seemed fazed, their heart-rates spiking 10 bpm. Blake was surprised at the sheer indifference to Ozpin's presence by the rest of the board.

Admiral Glynda Goodwitch just snorted, her purple eyes matching Ozpin's."Your choices were absurd, don't even try to defend them. Pulling 4 Rear Admirals for one expedition? Admirals don't grow on trees."

Blake's avatar kept a neutral stance, even as she kept scanning both Glynda and Ozpin for any changes in their demeanor, but both were as unmoving as the bulwark above them. She felt Yang accessing the system, doing the same. Both had developed a close working relationship, and Blake knew this was something that they both needed to monitor at the same time.

"This isn't your normal asset retrieval mission. The security of the Empire depends on this mission."

"There are thousands of line captains that have plenty of combat experience. With the increase in Grimm in the northern sectors, we need our command structure at full capacity." Allecko said, to a few nods from around the table.

"The expeditionary force is going to be charting unknown regions of space, we could be talking about new species, unknown military powers, unsafe FTL routes, not to mention the Grimm. A random line captain isn't going to be prepared to handle that." Ozpin's hand tightened on his cane, and Blake detected his breath rate's increase for a second. His bodily control was amazing for a human.

"Stop painting yourself as the victim Oz, that might work with the bureaucrats, but not here. These captains are hardened combat veterans, not some print-plaque fresh to his captain's commission." The unidentified admiral from before spoke again, "And you got the AI you toted as the keystones to the entire operation. If they're as good as you claim they're going to be, you shouldn't need 4 of our best."

> And the trap is sprung.

< Yeah, he should have seen that coming.

> He got the ship design, and his AI. He can't get to pick the officers, its politics.

< Tell him that.

"We still suffered 3 failed attempts. We need to go for this with everything we have." Ozpin wasn't giving up, but Blake didn't see what good it would do.

"No, we don't. With the Mistral quadrant swarming with Grimm, we need every battle-forged Admiral at the head of a fleet, not parading into the unknown for your personal pet project. Unless you'd like to suggest a different group of captains, this discussion is over." Glynda said, her eyes issuing the obvious challenge to Ozpin, who took a sip out of his coffee mug.   
  
"AI," Glynda turned to Yang and Blake's avatars, "Do you find the suggested officers unfit for this assignment?"

It was obviously a loaded question, and Blake wasn't sure if the admiral simply didn't realize the free form nature of Yang and herself, or if she just wanted the most pragmatic response possible from people who would be personally involved in the operation. Her logic processors did a full stop, did she just refer to herself as a person? Blake sighed and stifled both her heating emotions and logic processes for a moment.

</ INSW.LV.AI.Blake >> INSW.MV.AI.Yang />

> What's your opinion?

< Three captains chosen. Captain Lie Ren, Captain Nora Valkyrie, and Captain Pyrrha Nikos.

> Decent combat records, all three served in the Siege of Makalvor, the fourth should have similar credentials.

< There's a difference between fleet warfare and the shitstorm we're walking into, and never underestimate the fleet's ability to fuck itself over.

> That's the point. 500 ships were all gunning for each other around the planetary moon. First reports indicate that at least three separate fleet AI overloaded their processors handling it all. The amount of captains that broke formation or panicked is in the dozens.

< Battle-forged and cool heads then, fair enough.

> Someone has to cool you down.

"These choices are sufficient." Blake's voice was flat as she answered, careful to not betray any emotions in such a charged environment.

A small smile brushed Ozpin's lips as the Admirals scowled faintly around the table at her noncommittal answer. The three captains still stood at ramrod attention, seemingly deaf to the review of their skills going on around them. Then again, some admirals around them had developed well deserved reputations for leaving the burning careers of aspiring captains in their wake.

"That isn't a glowing recommendation." Ozpin's voice was the same smooth baritone as ever, but Blake could see the small lean forward he made, and the 1 second delay before breaking eye contact with Admiral Glynda.

"That's because if you want a glow you come to me." Yang's avatar wrapped an arm around Blake's avatar and smiled at the three captains, "I'm sure you'll get along fine with us."

Blake sighed in irritation and dematerialized her avatar before reappearing 3 inches from Yang, and making a point of smoothing out her outfit while she double checked the dust orders for the second armory on the Gambol Shroud. The Ember Cellica was so stuffed with ordinance Blake was curious to see if any captain would have enough guts to fly their ship within 50 million kilometers in front of it in case it blew.

> Quit being unprofessional.

< What's the fun in that? All work no play?

> AI don't play.

< Then you haven't seen my highscore on Batknight: Dust Devils yet.

Yang transmitted a rather impressive score as Glynda opened her mouth again to speak, "I think that concludes everything, I've got a meeting with the NSB. Sedition doesn't stop itself."

A few knowing half grins flashed around the table, but they weren't smiles out of joy. Blake was reminded of a wolf pack baring its fangs, predators returning to their preferred hunting grounds. As they all left the office, Ozpin picked up his cane, and stalked slowly to his desk. The trip took 3.2 seconds longer than before the meeting, a rather large drop in efficiency for a man that stuck to a routine so religiously Blake could pinpoint his location by 1 meter at any given time of the day.

Yang's avatar made a show of stretching, to no practical purpose. "That was fun."

"I'm not sure an AI designed to excel in warfare calling a meeting fun is a good thing." Blake shut down her avatar and sent several fragments to the various data pads left littered on the table. Each was a piece of classified evidence that had to be purged, and the 'busy work' let Blake split her focus ten fold, a welcome distraction from the meeting regardless of how trivial it was.

Ozpin's mouth twitched again, finally relenting and giving the location where she had been projected before a small smile. Blake found it curious that he smiled 47% more often in the company of AI than in the company of regular humans. Her logic processes reminded her that there was a large difference between veteran military officers and normal humans. She still found the difference odd, especially for a career 'spook', as many of the basic staff had taken to calling him where they thought nobody could hear.

"At least she has a sense of humor. Sometimes I wonder if your parents were traffic programs, all I hear is, routine routine routine..." Blake's emotional processes heated a fraction, she never liked interacting with Alpha.

"Blake's got a sense of humor, you just have to read the batch script attached to the shipping orders to see it." Yang smiled again as her avatar disappeared in front of Ozpin.

</ INSW.BA.AI.Alpha >> INSW.LV.AI.Blake && INSW.MV.AI.Yang />

> Yo fax machines, gonna need to start phase 3.

<(Blake) Construction still has several days left until completion, and the transfer wasn't scheduled until 3 days before launch.

<(Yang) The increase in network traffic in the gas cloud might compromise operational security, the encryption modules on the comms aren't working yet.

> All I hear is whining. Opzin has a plan, and if I trust it that shit should be the fucking gospel to you two.

<(Yang) Me without my preacher's clothes.

> I know, it sucks. But all bullshit aside, we need to move. Imperial Central Command has been busy, shit is going down. Nobody knows what for sure, but Admirals are moving, Captains are up and vanishing into NavSpecWar's never ending black hole of an ops budget.

<(Blake) So what does that have to do with us?

> Everything. The amount of supplies and dollars the navy can sink into wetwork is painfully finite. With the amount of funds clearing and supplies moving, Ozpin's worried that if you don't launch soon some other bigshot is going to requisition mission critical supplies for his own schemes.

<(Yang) We still have to finish up alot of major components in the Crescent Rose, not to mention the Ember Cellica and Gambol Shroud.

> You can do that, but it also means we're pushing things up. Blake, Ozpin wants you to oversee the crew transfers while Yang finalizes ordinance requisitions. I'll be giving your Repair Variant an extremely accelerated crash course. Ozpin wants us to launch by tomorrow.

<(Blake) You want me to cross deck around thousands of people into three partially finished starships in the middle of a black site in 24 hours?

> Yep. Congrats on having a working data processor, now get to it.

<(Yang) It isn't all bad, now I'm in charge of all the explosives. Which means the King is going to be picking up all sorts of high end goodies on his tab.

> If NSB shows up to audit me, I'm going to send them straight after you.

<(Yang) Good thing we're going off the grid.

<(Blake) For better or for worse.

> Blah Blah, great unknown blah blah dangerous mission. Just shut it and get to work. I've got to go wake the third member of your expedition. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I kept playing with how to do this, its definitely an interesting proposition to write AI like this, and again if I'm doing stuff in a really haphazard way let me know so I can improve. 
> 
> I'd love to hear any and all feedback or comments that anyone has, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	3. Kalipso

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Expedition Force Beacon travels to the Imperial listening post and resupply station Kalipso.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, back from the dead again :D. Got two main fics, so updates aren't that fast when life is also really not giving you free time. This fic isn't dead until I say it is though, so here we are. 
> 
> Sci-Fi RWBY! Comments, thoughts, etc are all welcome and appreciated! I'm always looking to improve my writing, from description to storytelling to dialogue to worldbuilding, so don't be shy to give me some thoughts. With that said, enjoy the read!

  
______________________________________________________________________  
( AI 0397-Blake, Phase 1 launch)

The Belladonna, The Gambol Shroud, Blake reminded herself, was a teeming hive of activity. The majority of the construction crews were gone, with the permanent engineering complement taking up the final fine-tuning tasks while the rest of their supplies were being organized and stored below. They would be the backbone of Blake's efforts in keeping her ship at peak efficiency, so she made sure to monitor their early work closely. The ship's marine detachment was still settling into their barracks, so the only step left was to officially cross deck her officers.

Blake's processes stopped cycling for a micro-second, did she just call them her officers? They were independent organisms stationed on the Gambol Shroud. But Blake was The Gambol Shroud, as much as one could be. As the final Raptor docked in hanger 3, Blake archived that line of thought. Her captain had arrived. She devoted an entire 15% of her focus towards the hanger, a gross mis-allocation of her attention, but she felt it was needed. She was going to have to trust the arrivals with her life, and thousands of others. It was worth the waste, she wanted to start things off right.

Hanger 3 was filled with activity, as the hanger crews rushed to store and inspect the latest batch of Raptor multi-purpose transports. Their name was aptly given, with a sleek and angled chassis they resembled a predator. Several junior naval non-coms were standing at attention by the latest arrival, their faces rigid and uniforms spotless. Blake couldn't help but notice their heart rates were over the normal average, they were anxious too. It was an entire 10 seconds before the Raptor door opened, but it was enough to drive Blake up a wall. There was still so much to do, with only an hour remaining until Alpha's 24 hour deadline. Even with Blake's meticulous oversight for 23 hours, The Gambol Shroud still had a long ways to go, with the consensus among the crew being "Get everything in, sort it all out later".

Blake double checked the route to the bridge was free of unstowed supplies, deeply unsettled that was a problem she had to deal with. Finally, the door to the dropship opened to reveal three figures. The first was Blake's captain, Senior Captain Pyrrha Nikos. The woman was wearing what passed for casual among the officer corp in the royal navy, a black officer's shirt with black pants, a shoulder communicator the only ornament. She carried herself with a quiet confidence, surveying the hangar with an astuteness born from years of service.

Blake projected her avatar through one of the hanger cameras, adjusting the scale and distance so that it appeared life size next to the dropship door. She figured it would ease the introductions and make the captain feel more at home, increasing her average performance by a astonishing 1.5% metric. "Captain, Imperial Navy Special Warfare AI 0397-Blake reporting for duty." Snapping a salute didn't feel quite right, but she did have her avatar stand a little straighter.

Nikos stepped out of the dropship and nodded to Blake's avatar, before continuing down the line. The two officers behind her fell in line, and Blake dissolved her avatar as the junior officers finished off their formal parade. Blake was pleased to note that as they continued towards the bridge, the crew didn't stop to salute as they continued prepping the ship. That alone probably saved 25 minutes in total time, a very precious resource given their current time-table.

"Blake, status report." Nikos finally broke the silence in the central lift. She had been too busy studying the ship and crew to comment, though Blake was pleased that she displayed no negative expressions, intentional or unintentional.

Blake quickly scanned the ship, taking in the current state of affairs in a moment before answering. "Aye ma'm. Currently entering shakedown cycle theta. Reactors 1 and 3 suffered ruptures in their coolant pipes, and one of the reactor shields in Reactor 2 failed. Our warp drive is currently finishing re-calibration, we should be space worthy in 45 minutes 23 seconds."

Nikos mulled it over for a second, her lips compressing a fraction of an inch. Her other companion crossed their arms over their chest, opaqued helmet glancing at the camera in the lift. "Security Sitrep."

Blake could have complied immediately, but curiosity drove her to quickly send a fragment back to the Charon's databanks to grab something. Alpha had blocked off some of the officer's full files, citing mission security. He was currently busy in the Atlas quadrant handling a massive Grimm attack, and the fragment he left behind was laughably easy to bypass. Blake was a ghost, sending the fragment after shadows and false copies while she got what she wanted: Colonel Raven Branwen's file.

It was copied in her internal storage and all traces she left were gone before Alpha's fragment knew what happened. Blake didn't rest on her victory, she instead pulled up Raven's file. It was like someone had dropped it in a vat of ink, most of it was redacted or classified under a dozen different subsections. What Blake could grasp was surprising, Raven was a veteran. Over a dozen different ground campaigns, including Operation Junglecat. Her brigade was filled with battle hardened veterans, which is exactly what Blake wanted. Their mission would be sending them down to retrieve an alien artifact from an unknown world, unless it was adrift in space.

She finally deigned to answer the question, aware that almost no time had passed at all. "Your brigade is currently either unpacking or starting their guard shifts. Current operational security is optimal, no security abnormalities to report."

Raven nodded, satisfied. Captain Nikos frowned slightly before speaking, "Weapon status?"

It was a question usually asked when expecting trouble. Given their current mission, Blake wasn't surprised by it at all. She paused a microsecond to quickly verify the current arming progress before responding. Her core heated a fraction in annoyance as one of the engineers in hanger 2 dropped a missile, though thankfully neither the floor nor the missile dented.

"Point defenses are functional, and missile tubes A1-J10 are loaded and ready. Plasma batteries are operational, and our fighter squadrons are currently ready for deployment." Pyrrha blinked, but nodded thanks anyways.

The lift slowed to a halt, and the doors parted to reveal the security corridor to the bridge. Four marines snapped to attention, their facial masks hiding any expressions. Raven waved her hand, and they relaxed. Blake paused for a second to verify that all final repairs were going according to schedule while they approached the bridge. She suppressed another surge of annoyance at Alpha's mandated comm lockdown, leaving her cut off from the outside world. She desperately wanted to see if Yang's progress with The Ember Cellica matched or surpassed her own, and she wanted to meet their third teammate. All she could do now was keep making sure The Gambol Shroud was ready as fast as possible.

"At ease," Pyrrha dismissed the bridge crew back to their posts with a small wave.

The bridge settled into an uneasy silence as the officers manned their stations. From Blake's limited footage records from various other Imperial warships, it seemed a more rousing or profound introduction was preferred in the face of such an unusual mission. However, everything continued as normal. Pyrrha's personal terminal in the captain's chair pinged a request for the bridge crew's personnel files. Blake complied before returning most of her focus elsewhere.

Raven was currently inspecting Armory 4 with two other marines. Blake quickly cross-referenced their faces with her crew files to confirm that they were Raven's lieutenants: Lieutenant Colonels Vernal and Harrison. Blake noted with a small sense of satisfaction the look approval on the Colonel's face when she surveyed the arms she and Yang had picked for this mission.

The moment didn't last, as a logging error of sensor stacks brought her full focus back into organizing the mess that was the Gambol Shroud's current status. Crewmen kept putting things in the wrong places in an effort to clear walk-ways, but that only further compounded the problem as Blake was left with high-explosive Raptor ammunition left next to the rations for B-deck. To make matters worse, she only had 36 minutes to give this her full attention.

She was so lost in the mess that she barely processed when Pyrrha called her from the bridge.   
"Aye Captain?" Her avatar flashed to life on the bridge holoprojector, and she ignored the glances by the various bridge crew, or at least tried to. It was embarrassing. AI weren't that much of a rarity in the fleet, especially in the Imperial Special Forces.

"Any word from your sister AI?" Pyrrha asked, before inspecting the Weapon Officer's profile on her terminal.

Blake re-routed a crate of spare piping before answering, "Negative, the communications lockdown has prevented all communication."

"Why on Remnant are we on Comm lockdown right before launch?" The irritation on Pyrrha's face vindicated Blake's own frustration. It was the first time since she had met Yang that she hadn't been able to talk to the AI. She found the lack of banter unsettling, her loneliness highlighted. Her logic told her that was an unreasonable and stupid line of thinking, but it persisted regardless.

"Ozpin initiated the lockdown for security reasons."

Pyrrha's scowl indicated this wasn't a sufficient answer, but Blake had more important things to deal with. They would be space-worthy in several minutes, and there was still so much to sort out. If a critical system failure occurred, then having crates of food and guns blocking the path to the reactor would be extremely problematic. Blake kept herself busy, but started to relax as the deadline inched closer, agonizing second by agonizing second as her crew worked at a snail's pace. What she would give to have the world run at her pace.

The next 20 minutes went by relatively painlessly for Blake, who kept tabs on everything but wasn't needed for any direct interventions. Pyrrha spent most of the time casually introducing herself to the bridge crew, who had grown more relaxed. Their breathing rates and average noise output had increased to normal levels, and foot-traffic near the captain's chair had returned to standard levels.

Raven was still inspecting the Gambol Shroud, though she had finally removed her helmet to reveal a younger face than Blake would have expected. Her lieutenants were sorting out security patrols, while the marines were in various states of agitation. Blake had to check her internal records of the Charon's security detail that excessive complaining was indeed a normal activity for security personnel.

"Blake, status report." Pyrrha said, and Blake manifested her avatar on the bridge with a fraction of her processes.

"We are space-worthy captain. All preparations are proceeding as planned. Sensors indicate that the Ember Cellica and Crescent Rose are both powering up their warp drives. Ready to depart at your order."

"Navigation, set a course for the Kalipso."

One of the men sitting to her right quickly made a few last minute adjustments, before locking in the course. Blake reviewed it, surprised at the accuracy, there was less than a .01% chance of hitting any number of the various stars on route. "Course set Captain."

"Take us there Lieutenant." The man nodded, and soon the Gambol Shroud was tearing its way through space.

Blake knew she had only 10 hours until the arrived, but that was plenty of time to let the crew sort out their inventory situation. Deciding to indulge herself, she created a fragment in one of her space memory banks, and promptly downloaded several books to enjoy. She could spare the process power, for this one little indulgence.

_________________________________________________

Blake materialized herself on Raven's personal holo-projector, and surveyed how the room had changed. The bed in the left wall had an extra red blanket, and the personal storage lockers next to it were noticeably fuller than before, though with what Blake couldn't say. The right hand side of the room still held the personal projector, which was set to automatically cycle through the bio-scans of Raven's brigade. A table had been shoved under the display, and its surface was littered with various weapon maintenance kits, and oddly an antique tea set. Next to the door to Raven's bathroom rested the missing gym equipment Blake had been looking for.

Raven herself was currently adjusting something on her helmet, and she barely glanced at Blake before speaking. "What?"

"We've arrived at Remnant-8, but the station Kalipso hasn't responded to any pings by any of the AI. The captain wanted you in Operations." Blake scratched one of her ears, Raven reminded her of Ozpin in that her presence made her uneasy.

Raven's demeanor changed in an instant, her aloofness turned into razor focus as she sat up, and marched towards her storage locker. Blake was surprised she was already in her armor, but then maybe she was expecting trouble, they were on the fringe of Imperial space. She set about retrieving a surprising amount of ordinance, from a massive rifle to an unknown sword.   
  
"Have you detected any anomalies circling the station?" Raven asked, slinging the rifle over her shoulder.

</ INSW.LV.AI.Blake >> INSW.MV.AI.Yang && INSW.RV.AI.Ruby />  
  
> Any changes?

<(Yang) No, can't see anything off.

<(Ruby) Are your sensors acting funny? I could try and look them over if...  
  
> No, my sensors are fine. It always helps to have an extra pair of eyes, or nodes.

<(Ruby) Oh, right. Sorry.

<(Yang) Don't be sorry, better safe than sorry.

"No anomalies that I can detect. Imperial logs are reporting that the automated status reports aren't updating."

Raven nodded to herself, and slid a pistol into a holster on her belt. "Any visible signs of damage?"

Blake quickly refocused her long range camera, but the station was still a minuscule spec in the distance. "Unknown, we're still on approach vector."

"How long since last contact?" Raven slid a combat knife into a sheath on the back of her belt, and attached her sword to a magnetic holster on her back. Blake found her choices of rather...archaic weapons interesting.

"Records indicate 5 hours since last contact. It is probable however, that the beacon wasn't destroyed in the original incident." Blake said as Raven slid an pair of magazines into her belt and left the room.

"Plenty of time." Raven muttered to herself before addressing Blake, "Tell Vernal to prep a team."

> My captain is likely going to try and insert a team.

<(Yang) Mine too.

<(Ruby) Mine wants to complete a thorough scan before moving.

> We need to secure the station, it has mission critical supplies.

<(Yang) Not to mention this is where we meet our esteemed 4th ship.

<(Ruby) Okay, I'll tell my...

<(Yang) Best let them sort it out, they have acting command.

> Not to mention this would be a good opportunity for them to establish a decent chain of command. I'm surprised one wasn't promoted to expedition head.

<(Yang) Military politics again, but field officers should be able to handle this one.

Blake quickly dispatched a fragment to summon Lieutenant Colonel Vernal. "Done."

Raven cradled her helmet in her arm, and didn't bother saluting her marine patrols as they passed. Blake watched her progress while monitoring the hanger crew's progress in hanger 4. They were in the process of preparing two Raptors.

"What's our ETA to the station?" Pyrrha asked, leaning over the center piece of the Operational Command Center for the Gambol Shroud. Around her the room was filled with various junior officers at the monitoring stations, each focused on a different read-out.

"12 minutes ma'm. Still no answer to any hails, and the station is dark." An ensign called out.

Pyrrha nodded to herself, and inspected the massive 3D system rendering on the holo-table in front of her. Her main focus seemed to be the gas giant on which the Kalipso orbited, its lack of any orbiting debris made it ideal for a long range listening post. Remnant-8 as a system held little of note, only an automated Imperial mining station on the far side of the system. The two other planets were charred husks, classified as 'contaminated' by Imperial Central Command. Blake found the truth more disturbing, they were dead worlds.

Two thriving colonies of rather peaceful farming complexes, they had fallen quickly when the Grimm had driven away the backwater Imperial fleet patrolling the system. The infestation that followed their ground invasion was so severe that when a war fleet retook the system, it was deemed safer to simply eradicate the planet's atmosphere. Now only a single station remained, constantly reminded at the need for vigilance, and the cost for failure. Blake knew their mission carried a much higher cost for failure.

"Hail Crescent Rose." Pyrrha said, zooming in on the gas giant they were rapidly approaching.

"Hailing."

Blake made room as the holoprojector in the camera was accessed by a remote device. A man in a captain's uniform materialized in front of the table, his posture rigid and professional. He surveyed the holo-table in front of him, purple eyes slow and methodic as he took in the various readouts of the system. He was still in the same formal uniform as the day Blake saw him, however the various medals were no longer pinned to his chest. The rest of the crew took a few sidelong glances at him, but remained focused on their duties.

"Ren." Pyrrha smiled and gave a small nod to the other captain.

"Pyrrha." The man replied in kind. Blake recorded at least 7 exhales within a second of that reaction from the crew. So she wasn't the only one worried about wether or not their officers would get along and work together. A mission so dangerous as this wasn't the time for bickering or grandstanding.

"Hail the Ember Cellica." Pyrrha turned back towards the communications station, and an ensign nodded. "We need to clear the station, and find out what happened. With any luck we can retrieve the rest of the supplies."

"We have no idea what we could be getting involved with." Ren said, adjusting the holo-table's view until it was centered on the readout of the station. Or rather, Blake saw which buttons his avatar brushed through and did it for him, since she felt like being helpful. "We should wait for the Imperial reclamation fleet."

Another avatar materialized through her second camera, this one a cheerful woman in a standard issue navy shirt and combat shorts. Blake noted with surprise that a pistol was clipped to her waist, an unusual choice given that Imperial captains were taught to avoid combat at all costs, given the amount of time and money it took to train them. This captain stood loose, and smiled at a few passing crewmen, who gave strained smiles in return. Imperial military officers rarely smiled at their subordinates without reason.

"Helllooo, good to see you two again." The captain smiled and leaned over to study the station readout. "Never any rest for the wicked, is there?"

"You wouldn't want it any other way." Ren said, and she just laughed. Blake reviewed her file again. Nora Valkyrie, nothing as far as combat stress or PTSD recorded, so it must just be personality quirks. Sometimes reading humans got confusing, as they were almost always irrational to some level, compared to Blake's rather small metric. At least, thats what her logic process told her.

"Knowing the mission, that's a good thing." Pyrrha said, before turning back towards the holo-table. "

"So, what's the gameplan? Station dark, no report from station OpSec, and nothing on scanners. Just a ghost town over there." Nora's assessment was blunt, but accurate.

She was tempted to contact Yang and Ruby, but they had agreed to let their captains handle this, and if they weren't going to do anything about it then forming their own consensus was inefficient and pointless. Since her job was to maximize mission efficiency, Blake kept monitoring the conversation while helping the crew sort their supplies. A fraction of her processing power was still trained on the squads Vernal was prepping down in Armory 5, noting the calm speed to which they moved and assembled.

The Operations Center's door slid apart to admit Raven, who had donned her helmet. Blake could feel the chilling effect it had on the room as breathing rates dropped and heart rates increased as it surveyed everything. The visor was opaque, running across Raven's eye level, while the rest of her helmet was a smooth white of an Imperial officer. Raven had added red war stripes across the entire helmet, giving it a primal look.

"I'm here." She didn't bother to salute, but instead set a hand on her pistol holster and stood at loose attention in front of Pyrrha. Blake didn't miss the glance Nora and Ren shared, and she suspected Raven caught it too.

"Colonel. We were just starting to discuss our next move." Ren adjusted the holo-table to focus in on the layout, specifically the hangar bay.

Raven cocked her head, and studied the layout for a second. Blake tried to access her HUD remotely, but was harshly rebuffed by a robust firewall. After a second, Raven spoke. "We only have one move, spring the trap."

"You think this is a trap?" Nora asked, frowning. Blake noticed her hand drifted closer to her firearm.

Raven stepped forward and glanced up at the camera. "Pull up the inventory list for the Kalipso."

Blake complied, accessing the data packet she pulled from the Imperial archives to view the latest inventory report. Blake had access to the classified version, where all the crates of grain and iron alloys were correctly marked as what they were, ground breaking scientific and sensor equipment alongside a few heavier mechanized terrestrial combat mechs. She took a moment to cross reference every entry with the list of items she had recommended Ozpin add. Most glaring was the lack of a set of stasis pods. Each relic was said to be different, and Blake was annoyed Ozpin didn't entertain the notion that it was a living organism, or at least semi-organic.

She sent the list to the holo-table, before adjusting their course towards the station. The sensors were getting clearer readings, but everything was still silent, nothing out there. Not the small traces of radiation given off by B list pirate stealth drives. The Kalipso's situation was still a mystery, and Blake was itching to solve it. The fact that the lives of everyone on board might be at risk only frustrated her further, the lack of information was troubling. The Imperial Navy lived and died off of information, its AI even more so.

"Nothing seems amiss." Pyrrha said, scrolling through the items slowly. "Though if the black market got wind of what was being stored here for pickup, there wouldn't be any shortage of raiders ready to try their luck against the station defenses."

"Yes, but this hit wasn't a raid," Raven said, "It was clean, calculated, and professional. This took effort, planning. None of the station's 5 automated warning failsafes activated."

"They had a man on the inside." Ren surmised, and Blake noticed his fists clenched behind his back.

"Likely."

"Wouldn't be hard to bribe a station security officer, or a dockworker, or a cargo hauler. Imperial discipline and operational security on fringe outposts is always lackluster." Nora's frown deepened.

One of the junior crewmen turned in his chair, "ETA 3 minutes and closing Captain."

Raven turned to Pyrrha, tapping a finger impatiently against her holster. "Hows and Whys can wait a moment. We need to investigate, and spring whatever trap they've set up. It wouldn't be worth the effort to mute the station if they planned on a hit in run, which means there's something else going on here."

Nora nodded, "Agreed. Colonel Schnee is preparing a team for insertion. They'll be ready to deploy in one."

Raven glanced at the list of items, before returning her gaze to Nora. "It'll have to be a two pronged sweep. Each team should sweep a hangar," Blake brought back the blueprint layout for the station on the holo-table as Raven gestured. "and proceed to Station Security. The black-box would be there. Once we know what happened, we can start a salvage operation."

Blake angled the camera more, and took a moment to seriously study the station layout. It was a central hub module, with two massive protruding arms. Each arm held a hangar capable of fitting an entire strike cruiser inside, as well as a myriad of redundant sensor and generator systems. A row of kinetic rail guns lined each side of the arms, but their power coils were dormant on sensors. The center module was a three level complex, with a maze of corridors and intersections designed to slow down and hamper enemy boarders.

Like all remote Imperial outposts, it was designed to whether a Grimm siege. Automated turrets and blast doors at key junctions, a maze of complicated hallways and a non-centralized layout served to hamper any attackers progress and prevent any single sector's fall from crippling defense. It worked, which was the problem when you were trying to clear the station. To make matters worse, Station security was right in the center, meaning that they would have to clear half the station in order to reach it. The only advantage was that Raven would have access to the layout of the station, which would cut out most of the maze.

Pyrrha pursed her lips, "It will take a while to sweep the station."

"Which means we'll have to be prepared for an ambush." Ren said, "If there are any enemies on that station, they will have to have a way out, one that will likely try and help."

"Then I'll need Blake." Raven said, causing Blake to stop monitoring the marines in the hangar for a full microsecond as she processed that. Take her? "If we're going to be in there, we might as well try and get some of the auxiliary systems online. If the station's lockdown protocol went into effect, we'll need her to access the security center."

Nora and Ren nodded, and Pyrrha blinked. "Blake?" Blake dutifully projected her avatar on the holo-table.

"It is a logical conclusion. I can create a fragment to be carried by a tech specialist on the insertion team." She was glad none of the crew in this center were playing her any special attention, she preferred to make their lives smoother behind the scenes.

Ren was the first to question her willingness, "Will the loss of that fragment compromise mission security?"

Raven glanced at the captain as Blake's avatar opened its mouth to speak, and cut her off. "Trust my marines to do our job, and we'll trust you to do yours."

"I can strip my fragment to all non-mission sensitive components in order to prevent interrogation." Blake added in a quieter voice, her ears twitching nervously. The thought of wiping a small part of her's memory wasn't a pleasant one, but she would do it.

Pyrrha nodded "Then its settled."

Blake took a moment to gather her thoughts, before splitting herself off from herself. It was a disjointed feeling, since unlike before her background processes didn't automatically connect at the time of separation. There was a firewall, blocking most of her memory from her access. She knew it was there, but she couldn't access it. Perhaps most surreal was hearing herself speak through the holo-table.

"Fragment prepared for boarding." It was her voice, except she didn't say that. Then it hit her, she was the fragment, not the fragmentor. It made her feel smaller somehow.

Raven yanked her data chip out of the holo-table, and placed it inside her helmet. Blake's world went from nothing back to her suit's sensor systems in a moment.

"Vernal, status?" Raven said as she turned and started down the hallway, giving no time for Blake to adjust.

Blake used to be the Gambol Shroud, every camera, subsystem, sensor, and terminal were a part of her network. She could access, change, and monitor every single kilobyte of information in the ship at once, and then some. She was as close of a thing to a God as possible, and the ship was her domain. Now she could only access Raven's helmet camera, communication feed, and several different armor sensor outlays. It was close, confining, and....personal.

Before she could monitor a crewmen's heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing patterns without a thought, but now she could do so much more. Raven's hormone levels, vitamin intake, muscle mass, reaction time, and so much more were all there for her. She knew Raven's body better than her own. It felt intrusive, and Blake sent most of the data back to where it came, ignored.

"Prepped and waiting for you." A voice said in Blake's ear. That was new, the communications feed was no longer like a background conversation, it felt almost face to face.

"Glad to hear it," Raven replied, "How's the adjustment?"

It took her a moment to realize Raven was talking to her. "Different. This is all so....visceral."

"Wait until you see combat." Raven turned down and headed towards the hangar.

Blake could only hope she would be waiting longer than Raven thought she would.

_________________________________________________

"This is Raptor-1 to Archangel, nearing the hangar doors." The pilot's voice came through the communications array crystal clear. Blake quietly kept monitoring the Gambol Shroud's sensors for anything suspicious, but so far everything was clear.

</ INSW.LV.AI.Blake >> INSW.MV.AI.Yang && INSW.RV.AI.Ruby />

> All clear on my end.

<(Yang) Same here. Nothing to report from our team, so we'll be starting our patrol soon.

<(Ruby) We've taken up position on the far side of the station, but so far the sensors are still dark. Maybe everything is all clear?

<(Yang) Don't Jinx it.

> I've been monitoring NavSpecWar's communications, but so far nothing on our 4th ship.

<(Yang) Likely in another communications lockdown. Think they would at least give us a time-table.   
<(Ruby) I wish I was there, I could help with construction. Not to mention if something like what happened here happened at the construction site...

> That's highly unlikely.

<(Yang) Never know, but one problem at a time.

Pyrrha fiddled with a small sword and shield necklace, the polished bronze glinting into Blake's camera lens. One of the tactical officers responded for her. "Copy that Raptor-1, slow and steady on the approach."

There was a moment of silence as the dropship continued on its approach, its progress marked by a red dot moving along a screen on the far wall of the Operation center. Several officers tracked its progress, postures tense and unmoving. Blake realized this was a first time for them as well. The Gambol Shroud wasn't a ship was a crew complement used to working together, it was a ship staffed with veterans pulled from across the fleet. Veterans or not, it would take some time for them to fall into a routine and figure out how to work well with one another. She wasn't the only one with growing pains and something to prove, and this presented the perfect dry run.

"Archangel, we've entered the hangar. So far nothing to report, gonna set her down and start the sweep."

"Copy that Raptor-1, good hunting. Take it nice and slow, be careful..."

Blake's entire sensor array lit up in the next second as several unknown signatures warped in. This was not the time for subtlety, so she triggered the combat alert across the Gambol Shroud. Red lights flared up in the Operation Center, casting an eerie glow on the room as crewmen and officers alike glanced around for a fraction.

Blake didn't want to waste the second, but having a face to focus on would increase Pyrrha's effectiveness 3 fold, so she materialized her avatar. "Captain, unknown contacts emerging from warp space. No known IFFs on sensor, they aren't ours."

To her credit, Pyrrha demonstrated what the numerous military campaigns had taught her. Even as the crew around her were hopping to their stations, faces grim and set, she started taking command. "To your stations, you all know the drill. Focus on the station here, I'll deal with them. Blake, make sure the bridge is up to date by the time I get there. Tell Navigation to bring the reactors up to 60%, and have Weapons prepare a basic firing solution for missile pods A1-A5, evenly distributed. Patch Nora and Ren through my commlink."

Blake's avatar gave a small smile. "Aye aye, ma'm." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Battle coming next chapter, figured I should end it here for the sake of chapter length. Renamed the Belladonna to the Gambol Shroud cause thematics, and started the journey.
> 
> What awaits? What will happen? Will they survive? Who knows, but thats the fun. Thanks for all the feedback on last chapter, and I hope everyone enjoyed this one too!   
> Cheers!


	4. Skirmish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake faces combat on two fronts as the expedition comes under fire from unknown foes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive. Sorry for the insanely long wait. I can't make any promises for a posting schedule on this work, I'm working on my main fic before anything else. That said, I do plan on finishing this at some point.

"Several warp signatures detected." The pilot said over the comm. Raven's helmet turned towards the speaker, something Blake found wasteful and illogical. The fact that it prevented her from monitoring the body language of the soldiers seated across from Raven furthered her irritation.

"Any IFFs?" Raven's voice was calm, and her heartbeat hadn't even spiked at the possibility of a space battle during her operation. If Blake's greater half lost that fight, there might not be a ship to return to, and Raven might lose most of her brigade.

The soldiers around Raven started checking their weapons, Blake registering the various clicks and hums that accompanied a weapon check. "Negative ma'm. Unknown hostiles."

"Any new orders from command?"

"None. Nothing from the other team either."

"Raptor-2?" Blake would have gritted her teeth if she could. The newfound lack of capability was distressing. She would have normally been able to track the two transports for over 1.5 million kilometers before even having a hitch in the signal. Now her sensors were limited to internal and whatever Raven could see and hear.

"Locked in and ready to party ma'm." A different voice responded, directly into Raven's earpiece.

Raven unholstered her pistol and flicked off the safety. The electronic reticle inside her helmet flashed from dotted lines to solid lines, and then flickered green as it passed over her marines. Each's face was obscured by a mask similar to the one worn by Raven, and Blake could only guess at the faces within. A full platoon of soldiers sat beside Raven, and Blake watched with interest as their biosigns rapidly scrolled through the upper right corner of Raven's HUD, each soldier lingering only for a second before moving on.

"Roger Raptor-2. Follow us in, weapons primed." Blake felt Raptor-1 begin a reverse burn on its thrusters. She could calculate its drift based on the different vectors and Raven's shift in body angle, but inside her suit she could just feel it decelerate. Her connection let her feel what Raven felt in a visceral and almost intrusive manner.

Every marine looked towards the door at once, and Raven glanced back at the assembled faces around her. "Vernal briefed you. Keep your lines of fire tight and buckets down. If that bitch of a colonel Schnee's men beat you to OpSec I'll personally kick you out of an airlock."

A chorus of agreements from the men. Blake could feel it in the air, a cocktail of camaraderie, fear, trust, and adrenaline. She could list every hormone each marine was secreting, but she could never taste it or feel it race to her head and through her body like it was through Raven's. For the first time, Blake was jealous.

"Deploying hatches. Good hunting!" The pilot called over the comm. The two side doors on the Raptor slid upwards with a hiss, and four files of marines streamed out of each door, rifles raised and safeties off.

Raven was last through the hatch, unslinging her rifle and glancing down to check the power cell as her squads called out the all clears. The scratch marks etched into the side of the rifle caught Blake's attention, but she thought it unwise to comment on it in such a hostile environment. She could hear the marines fanning out through the hanger as the second Raptor deployed its troops, and Raven's platoons secured the hangar.

Blake had access to the schematics; the hangar was a large room overlooked by a control room and only one exit door, which lead into a small corridor which twisted its way into the main complex. What the schematics didn't mention was all the supply crates stacked towards the ceiling, Imperial logos scratched and faded from years of transport and use. Raven turned down a corridor and stacked up with one of her fireteams, rifled pressed hard against her shoulder as she stalked towards the operational center. Blake could hear the footfalls of the marines around her, and over a dozen IFF tags appeared on the HUD in front of her, the three fireteams ahead of Raven.

"Wolf 2-3 to Wolf 6, got a body." A voice called out over Raven's comm.

Her heartbeat jumped 2 beats, and her normal response time dipped by a quarter of a second as the minor adrenaline surge took over. "Report."

"Dockhand, domed. ID card is missing."

Blake noticed out of the corner of Raven's HUD the other marine fireteams were taking up covering fields of fire. Her processes started to heat up, this was real, a hostile presence was confirmed. Raven re-set the rifle against her shoulder and raised it. Her heartrate had spiked by 10, and Blake paused as the interior helmet cam told her Raven was smiling.

"Fireteams form up into squads. Stack up at the doors, Wolf 2-5 guard our exit."

The hangar was silent as 120 marines filed towards the hangar doors, taking up positions in a rough line at the end of the crates.Nobody glanced at the hangar exits, towards the fight that was undoubtedly raging around them. The lack of knowledge about what was going on outside was frustrating, especially since she was fighting out there. Blake archived that line of thought; she needed to stay focused, even though there was little she could do right now. Raven's suit had blocked her from accessing Raven directly, a disturbing show of force.

Two squads approached the doors, each taking a side as a marine crouched next to the door panel. "In position." One whispered over the comm.

"Go." Raven's reticle sighted in right on the middle of the door, about where someone's head would be, and Blake felt her processes accelerating as she desperately waited for something to happen.

The marine pressed a button, and the door opened to reveal an empty corridor. Raven kept her reticle trained on the far side of the corridor as the first two squads entered, and the rest advanced towards the door. Blake could pick out the serial numbers on the casings on the floor as Raven moved. It didn't match Imperial standard labels, but who else would be manufacturing arms?

Blake shelved that line of thought as one of the advance marines held up a fist, and the rest of the squad halted. "Got a mine."

Raven switched her vision to thermal, and Blake quickly saw the device. Aside from the plasma cells in the marine's rifles, a single signature registered from right behind an overturned table. A nearby marine swore and started grabbing into his pack.

"Greasebin..." A sergeant called to the marine, who produced a small box.

Blake wondered at a name like Greasebin. She knew marines and other army grunts had historically taken nicknames in order to boost camaraderie, while commanders allowed the practice as it served to distance their men from their civilian lives and focus them more on the unit itself. Still, the sheer...strangeness of the name was odd to her.

"On it." The marine knelt down and removed a small drone from the case. With Raven now looking on, Blake saw the serial number on the case. It was an Imperial minesweeping kit, this one produced on Gerbakis-4. She had ordered that two weeks, 3 days and 17 hours ago to assist in the search for.... what? She didn't know, but it was surreal seeing an item on a spreadsheet she complied now helping decide between life and death for these men and their mission. Their entire mission began to feel more real...whatever it was.

The drone tilted as it established an uplink to the marine's helmet, before stabilizing and floating over the mine. It hovered, making no sound as the marine scanned the plasma mine through the drone's sensor package. The rest of the squads had filed into positions around the marine, rifles angled to provide covering fire in case of an ambush. After another few seconds of tense silence, with only the faintest of pants from the minesweeper marine over the comm, the drone whirred to life, and several slender cutting tools and a small fusion torch detached.

"Here goes nothing..." Someone muttered over the comm, and the drone dropped. Blake had read the usage reports for every piece of equipment she had procured, but it was one thing to read 'rapid disarmament' and see the tiny drone descend from ceiling to floor, tools extended, and cut straight through the mine and rupture the plasma cell inside in less than two seconds. A flash of blue sparks and several scraping sounds and suddenly the mine was dead and hanging by one drone arm as it maneuvered back towards the operator.

Raven exhaled a breath Blake hadn't realized she had been holding, before motioning the advance. "Minesweepers in front, keep an eye on thermals."

Raven advanced behind first squad, and kept her rifle trained to the left of the first marine. Blake was busy trying to process the best way to help in the situation. Inside Raven's suit she couldn't do much, she needed to interface with the station to start to make a difference. The feeling of passive observance was new, normally there was something she could be doing to help however small. As Raven reached the end of the corner, Blake spotted a minor uplink terminal about 20 meters away. If she could get uplinked to even a few systems, she might be able to spot any other traps laid for them.

"If I may..." A bullet cut her off as the minesweeper's helmet exploded.

Raven was moving before Blake could even open the channel to tell her that the bullet's trajectory placed it on the upper left corner of the room, if there was one. The station schematics only gave key locations and room dimensions, and Blake's view was limited to Raven's field of view, which was currently focussedaimed down the barrel of her rifle aiming towards a dark shape tucked against a support pillar across the room.

"Contact left side, up high!" Wolf 1-3 opened fire as they spread out, bullet casings covering the floor.

More gunfire came from another point up high, thought Blake couldn't see where. There were so many moving parts and chaos to keep track of. She found it odd that Raven wasn't giving many orders to her men, seemingly focused on eliminating the enemy herself rather than coordinating her troops. Though Blake figured it made sense, platoons were trained to operate without a Colonel on the field with them.

A bolt of plasma arched over their heads and into the railing on the top of the plaza balcony, exploding in a blaze of blue and red as the metal walkway melted and red hot debris rained down onto the floor below. Another marine squad pushed into the room, and opened fire. Blake saw two more of their attackers go down, silent even as the firefight escalated.

Blake felt her processes heating up to critical levels as Raven's adrenaline seemed to transfer into her. She took a second to calm down and try and re-evaluate the situation. So far 1 dead marine, and two wounded. At least 3 dead attackers out of an unknown number, heavily armed to be able to punch through Imperial Marine armor with one shot. Blake tried to zoom in on the dead marine to get a better look at the impact wound, but Raven pivoted out of cover before she could.

The rifle kicked three times against her shoulder and another enemy dropped, two bullet holes through his helmet and one in his chest. Before Blake could get a good look at his armor, Raven was sprinting forward, her breath like thunder inside the helmet. "Get some grenades top side."

"Roger that." Blake tried to get her bearings again as a marine took a bullet to the shoulder. The constant radio chatter that hadn’t stopped since the first bullet was still there, disorienting and hard to pick out. By the time Blake matched the IFF with the voice with the marine's position with the message relevance there was already three more communications coming through. Everything in combat was moving so fast, she couldn't keep up or keep focused. She managed to locate the third squad that was pushing into the plaza, but then Raven called for covering fire and was moving again, and then the station rocked as an explosion shook the extended arm.

____________________________________________

The bridge was already a flurry of activity as Pyrrha entered, brushing past the pacing bridge officers. "Status report." She said to Blake's dutifully waiting avatar as she slipped into the captain's chair.

All around her the bridge crew kept working, intently focused on their stations as the quiet combat alarm sounded from the corridor. Blake could read it in their body language, they were nervous. This wasn't a drill, and they were about to enter a battle against an unknown enemy with a crew that still wasn't used to operating together. The minor quirks and idiosyncrasies each crew developed and then in turn relied on weren't there. No one knew how the others would react under pressure, if they could do their job effectively with the ship and their lives on the line. It was no surprise to Blake their movements were tense and lacking coordination.

"Reactor at 45% and climbing, missile pods A1-A5 have basic firing solutions for expected warp emergence points. Crescent Rose and Ember Cellica are warming up their reactors."

Pyrrha frowned at the tactical display in front of her, the thin hologram hologram tracking the three dots that represented their meager wargroup. "Bring the engines up to 50% and take us to heading 34-59-67."

"Aye Aye ma'm, estimated ETA 2 minutes and counting." The head navigation officer called, his face tight and sweat on his brow. Blake wondered how he'd react to actual combat.

</ INSW.MV.AI.Yang >> INSW.LV.AI.Blake && INSW.RV.AI.Ruby />

> Alright, you both ready to party?

<(Ruby) I think so. I should be able to repair most combat sustained damage. However if we...

> Focus on repairs later, right now we have an enemy fleet reduced to scrap. I'll be taking point on this one.

<(Blake) How can we help?

<(Ruby) Ready and willing.

> Clear some space in your holo-terminal's cache, we'll be sharing.

Blake did as she was told and cleared some space for a continuous transmission feed in her holo-projector on the bridge. After an electronic nod thanks, Yang's avatar materialized beside her own, and winked at Blake before addressing Pyrrha directly.

"With all due respect ma'm, I'll be manning the guns instead of Blake." A few of the bridge crew exchanged furtive glances at her announcement, but nobody tried to contradict her.

Pyrrha interlaced her fingers and met Yang's avatar stare for stare, her face an unreadable mask. "Understood. Give me a firing solution for plasma batteries 1 through 5, I want each missile pod set to impact after one plasma impact."

Yang's avatar gave her a thumbs up, "Recommendation noted."

Blake stopped for a full half second before processing what Yang just said, and her avatar shot Yang a confused glance.

Yang met her question with a small smile and a punch to her avatar's shoulder. Blake decided it wasn't the best time to distract Yang, so she set the majority of her focus on the Gambol Shroud. Marines were scrambling to establish security chokepoints in order to repel boarding as crewmen raced around the weapons batteries, screaming orders and getting into position to fire.

Then the warp signatures entered real space, and all of Blake's attention was directed to her sensors.

"Captain, 5 vessels detected. Two destroyer tonnage, Two frigate tonnage... One heavy cruiser tonnage. Unknown hull profiles... no identifiable markings. Sensor's can't pick up any details on weapon emplacements." Blake dutifully sounded off, distracted as she surveyed the fleet before her.

The enemy fleet sat around 320 thousand kilometers away, their hulls smooth and rounded compared to the Imperial style of angular ship profiles. The heat profile of each ship seemed concentrated on the fore of the ships, likely where their engines were kept. Blake couldn't detect anything that would resemble a weapon battery or a bridge.

"Wait for an attempt at communication. Broadcast standard Imperial handshake protocol on all open channels." Pyrrha pulled up a sensor feed and bit her inner lip in thought as she surveyed the fleet.

"Aye Aye ma'm, broadcasting." The communications officer called, her eyes never leaving the screen.

"Adjusting firing solutions..." Yang stated, and a new overlay appeared on the tac-plot in front of Pyrrha. Yang had given her access to the firing solutions she plotted for Gambol Shroud's guns, but not the others.

She had all ships concentrating fire on the Heavy Cruiser, with only a few missile pods dedicated towards the frigate class ships. Nothing was firing at the destroyers, an odd choice Blake didn't understand.

"No response ma'm." Communications called, and Blake could see the crew grimace. They had known it was unlikely this could be avoided, but now it was confirmed.

"Hail the Crescent Rose and Ember Cellica."

"Hailing."

"Captain, enemy fleet on approach vector." Blake said, and Pyrrha balled one hand into a fist as she surveyed the tactical plot in front of her.

"Captain, I've discussed it with the other captains, they agree this-” A waypoint appeared on the tactical plot, Yang wanted the Gambol Shroud to elevate itself, ideally to fire past the thick armor and engines on the ship's prow. The Crescent Rose was heading down, and The Ember Cellica was advancing to meet the enemy fleet. "...Is the best course of action. Without clear chains of command, I recommend leaving all military engagement to me for now."

Pyrrha frowned, her eyes taking on a new intensity, "Noted. Navigation set a course for 40-59-75, bring engines up to 75% and prime missile pods A6-J15. Be prepared to scramble fighters."

A chorus of Aye Aye's followed her orders as the crew moved to get the ship under a new heading. Blake could feel the Gambol Shroud shudder as the reactors heated up further and the engines flared to life again. She took a spare second to check the rear camera, and saw the two raptors pulling into the station's hangar. She wished her fragment luck, and then turned her focus back towards the engagement.

</ INSW.MV.AI.Yang >> INSW.LV.AI.Blake && INSW.RV.AI.Ruby />

>As soon as we reach firing range, open fire.

<(Blake) Understood.

<(Ruby) Roger that.

Blake couldn't help but notice some of her comrade's usual spunk was missing.

</ INSW.LV.AI.Blake >> INSW.MV.AI.Yang />  
  
> You good?

< Yeah...thanks for asking, but this is what I was made for.

"Enemy fleet approaching effective firing range in 10." A weapon's officer reported.

"Engines at 75% and holding, reactors stable."

The enemy fleet kept advancing towards The Ember Cellica, recognizing it as the biggest threat in their fleet. Blake refocused her sensors on the aft sections of the Heavy Cruiser."Captain, enemy heat signatures rising."

Pyrrha's lips remained pressed tight together, and her eyes narrowed a fraction as Yang's avatar remained motionless, purple eyes staring at the tac-plot. Blake could've sworn she almost seemed...eager, but AI didn't get eager. "3..2..1...fire."

The Gambol Shroud rumbled as over 100 missiles jettisoned towards the enemy Heavy Cruiser, and a few moments later 5 shots of superheated plasma appeared on the tac-plot, racing towards the ship. The Ember Cellica and Crescent Rose also opened fire, each sending another 100 missiles and 5 plasma barrage. Nora's ship also fired a Thunder Hammer, an extremely fast high yield missile with an explosive payload the size of a fighter jet. The tac plot and viewport at the front of the bridge both filled with streaks of light as the missiles raced towards their targets, who had returned fired.

Blake was having trouble keeping up with The Gambol Shroud's salvo, her sensors filled with thousands of separate pings as hundreds of projectiles all raced across space at thousands of kilometers per second. Yang however, had no trouble keeping track of the chaos unfolding. "Enemy missiles incoming, ETA 56 seconds."

Pyrrha scowled as red markers appeared on the plot before her, "Evasive maneuvers, engines up to 90%, fire port point thrusters on my mark. Give me the status on our salvo."

The head weapons officer answered, "Enemy taking evasive maneuvers, 15 seconds till first impact."

"Recommending new heading." Yang said, and another point appeared on the tac plot. She wanted each ship to flank the heavy cruiser from a different side.

"Thrusters, mark." Pyrrha clenched the arm rests on her chair as Blake fired the thrusters and the ship lurched to one side rapidly, and several railgun projectiles sailed past.

Two dozen missiles adjusted their path, and a few railgun rounds found their mark as they clipped The Gambol Shroud's hull. The ship shuddered as Blake felt its shield drain as the missile explosions blossomed along its flank. "Shields 34% and holding."

The kinetic rounds hit next, and the shield was enough to stop two, but two more collided with her hull. The explosions rocked the ship, and one ensign fell out of his seat. At the same moment, Blake watched as the first plasma salvo collided with the enemy fleet. The heavy cruiser was lurching to the side, and Blake watched in pain as 10 missiles streaked past and detonated harmlessly in the vacuum of space, while 30 more found their mark. A bright sphere of purple enveloped the ship as fires bloomed against its shields, which flickered before two streaks of plasma careened into its exposed sides, burning bright blue against the shields that refused to hold. One passed by, and the second wave of missiles hit. The second wave of plasma burned through the failing shields, leaving the path clear.

The third salvo missed entirely, but the fourth and fifth largely found their mark as small detonations peppered the Heavy Cruiser's flank, and two plasma streaks coated the upper decks, burning through armor and deck as the ship reeled. She bit down a wave of disappointment as the thunder hammer streaked past the warship lengthwise, missing by a margin of kilometers. Blake could see it venting atmosphere as several of its decks were breached and one of its engines shut down. The two frigates were nothing but molten slag, 50 archer missiles each reducing their targets to slag as the destroyers raced forward towards The Ember Cellica, venting air from several kinetic impacts, like sharks smelling blood.

"Damage report." Pyrrha coughed and adjusted the tac plot.  
  
"Shields down. 1 minute 30 seconds before charge. Decks B10-C20 breached and venting atmosphere. Plasma guns 7 and 9 non-functional."

"Give me 125% to engines. Give the crew one minute then seal and decompress those sections."

"Aye aye." Most of the cameras and sensors to those decks had been blown apart when the kinetic rounds tore through them, but Blake knew her ship inside and out. If they didn't get out or too an air station, over 400 people would die.

"Engines 101% and rising, reactor overload in two minutes 24 seconds."

"Firing solutions acquired." Yang crossed her arms and scowled at the heavy cruiser slowly turning to face the Ember Cellica. She had The Crescent Rose and Gambol Shroud each targeting a destroyer, while The Ember Cellica alone targeted the heavy cruiser.

"Fire at will. Blake, damage reports for The Crescent Rose and Ember Cellica."

"Firing." Yang practically spat the word, and Blake felt her ship rumble again as it opened fire.

"Crescent Rose avoided most of the fire, shields holding at 12%. Ember Cellica's breached on decks A5 through C30."

The Ember Cellica opened the volley with another thunder hammer, this one almost at point blank range as the ships accelerated towards each other. Two dozen smaller kinetic projectiles followed it, and another 100 missiles streaked towards the ship's engines. The Crescent Rose opened fire with The Gamol Shroud, each sending 4 plasma streaks and 50 archer missiles towards the destroyers.

The kinetic rounds from both ships struck first, and each shuddered as armor was shorn away and breached. The engines on the heavy cruiser flickered and died as Yang's salvo tore past the armor into the systems beneath, while The Ember Cellica's front was a mass of breached decks and shredded armor. The archer missiles struck home next, exploding in the already exposed front of the Heavy Cruiser, blowing apart the decks inside and widening the hole. The Ember Cellica shuddered as missiles exploded along its flank, leaving dozens of craters in its armor, but it kept accelerating. Then the thunder hammer struck home. Using the already massive wound on the prow, the missile struck true and detonated past the outer shell of the Heavy Cruiser, gutting it as explosions tore the ship apart from the inside out.

A small cheer came from the bridge crew, and Blake let herself smile in relief. Yang flashed a wolf's grin at the burning wreck of the starship as The Ember Cellica sailed past in triumph, bearing its scars with pride.

"Reactors overheating in 1 minute 49 seconds." A ship officer reported.

"Enemy firing. ETA 22 seconds." A weapons officer called.

Blake closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, "Decompressing Decks B10-C20." Pyrrha glanced down for a fraction of a second before returning to the tac-plot.

"Adjusting heading, present a smaller face to those kinetics."

"Aye Aye ma'm." Blake fired Gambol Shrouds point thrusters carefully this time, and the ship slowly twisted to minimize its target profile.

"Destroyer taking evasive maneuvers."

The destroyer tried to fire its thrusters, but Yang's firing solutions anticipated the move and 3 plasma streaks found their mark. The ship's shield flickered and then collapsed, the armor underneath scorched away by superheated plasma, leaving the ship's underbelly exposed. 17 missiles missed, but 33 struck true, and explosions tore apart the destroyer's inner decks and ruptured its reactor, which exploded. Only a few chunks of ship remained to drift through space.

"Confirmed kill." Pyrrha, Blake, and Yang all exhaled.

The other destroyer shuddered, a plasma streak punching clean through its armor and gutting the decks between. The Crescent Rose moved in for the kill as its engines flickered and died, the damaged ship leaking power, gun batteries dormant.

"Incoming!" The Gambol Shroud groaned as 5 kinetic rounds raced past, and two struck home. Missiles detonated along its armored spine, sending titanium plates spinning into space as the ship rocked. Blake's hologram flickered.

The lights on the bridge went out, and the emergency red light bathed the bridge in an ominous glow. "Damage report."

"Decks G7-K30 have been breached. Fires have broken out in Hangars 1 and 4. The main power coupling to Decks A through D has been severed. Emergency power is online." Her emotional processes ran cold as she automatically reported the damage. A lot of people could have died on those decks, a lot of her crew. It left her with a weird feeling in her core, one neither logic nor emotion could fully process amidst the chaos. It gnawed on her even as she refocused on the battle concluding around her.

"Sound the general evacuation alarm in the hangars and give them 30 seconds, then seal and decompress."

"Aye Aye." Blake blinked as she started the countdown alarm several decks down.

"Reactor overheating in 1 minute 22 seconds." A bridge officer reported.   
  
"Cycle the reactor and vent the coolant tanks. Bring engines down to 15%."

"Aye Aye Captain."

Pyrrha nodded to herself, and finally leaned back against the captain's chair. Her eyes shone with the afterglow of combat, she struggled to keep her breathing steady as she surveyed the bridge. Several ensigns nursed wounds and most of the stations were offline or on standby as sensor and power lines lay severed.   
  
Blake turned her attention back towards the debris beyond. The Crescent Rose was mostly intact, with several breaches on its starboard flank. It was currently on approach heading for The Ember Cellica, which drifted on the outer edge of the debris field created by the Heavy Cruiser. Most of the armor on its front and port was gone, with several gaping holes still venting air. Two of its engines were dark, and only a few point thrusters fired to keep itself stable.

Blake allowed herself a private smile when she was sure her crew wasn't looking.

</ INSW.MV.AI.Yang >> INSW.LV.AI.Blake />  
  
> We did it.

< You did it. Are you alright? You took a lot of hits.

> I might have lost a tooth, but I feel great. This rush is so...

< Byproduct of a damaged ship network.

> Oh come on, you can't tell me you felt nothing during that?

< Well...

"Warp signature incoming!"

Pyrrha spun towards the viewport, all business again. "How long till it arrives?"

"It's arriving, I don't know how we didn't pick this up, but its here."

"How big."

Blake swallowed, and re checked her scanners before answering. "Dreadnought class...unknown IFF." She certainly felt something new, fear.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All feedback appreciated, did you enjoy the pace, combat, etc? It all helps :)
> 
> Cheers!

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I'm a sucker for tough love, feedback is always welcome. I want to know if I am doing the fan fic equivalent of impaling myself on a spike, or not. 
> 
> Also I noticed there is one thing that always made RWBY episodes great: the cliff hangers - said no one, ever. 
> 
> I added one anyway. I'm going to finish the next chapter of my other work before starting on this one, so idk when the next chapter is going to be out. Hope you all enjoyed and thanks for reading.


End file.
